FORMAT/INFO: To Bargain With Mortals will be published on October 28th, 2025 by Bindery Books. It is 424 pages long and available in paperback and ebook formats.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: After years of exile, Poppy Sutherland is coming home. The adopted brown daughter of the white Viceroy of colonized Viryana, she was sent to a boarding school to learn how to behave like a proper Welkish woman. Now, faced with her father's ailing health, Poppy must use all that tutelage to successfully court the likely successor to her father's position in order to secure her own future Unfortunately, a Viryan crime lord known as the Jackal has decided that Poppy is the perfect bargaining chip in his efforts to free his imprisoned brother. When the kidnapped heiress and crime lord come face to face, however, they realize that Poppy might be the key to a free Viryana.
To Bargain with Mortals is an anti-colonization fantasy that digs into the political complexities that hamper revolution. I've read a number of fantasy books with anti-colonization themes in recent years, and I appreciated that To Bargain with Mortals grappled with an issue not often tackled in those books: the fact that the oppressed people are not a monolith. It is not as simple as colonists bad, the colonized good. Instead, To Bargain with Mortals explores the fact that colonized cultures can have their own flaws to contend with. In this instance, the people of the island had their own caste culture before the white people arrived. It treated those with magical gifts as more pure and holy than people without; it caused a stratification where non-magical people were considered lesser than, unacceptable marriage partners and not worthy of higher positions in life.
As a result, this divide makes the non-magical parts of Viryan culture less willing to jump into a revolution, as they feel they've just swapped one oppressor for another. Their life won't get better with the magic users back in control, so why should they make an effort? This division forces some of the characters to reckon with their own subconscious prejudices as they try to unite their people to take back their home.
And even after that, there's a divide in how the Virians believe they should go about trying to get back equality. Some want bloody revolution; others believe there's no way to oust the colonizers, and instead they need to make compromises to get representation in the government. These differing paths often put characters against each other when they should be working with each other, a fact that feels all too reflective of the real world.
While To Bargain with Mortals has multiple POV characters, the central one to the story is Poppy. A brown orphan adopted by the white governor of the island, she has been raised to believe that her island culture is something to be ashamed of. She had the old traditions literally beaten out of her, which makes her entirely unfamiliar with her own people and their way of being.
Her journey to reconnect with her culture is the central grounding point of the story, and overall a good one. In this world, while people are inherently born with magic, their ability to wield it effectively is tied to the offerings they make to the gods. Which means that Poppy's magical strength literally comes from learning more about her people, how to relate to them, and how to worship like them. Watching her grow in confidence in both her magic and her understanding of her culture was a highlight of the book.
But it also felt like Poppy was a stand-in to be everybody's emotional punching bag. Her white father blames her when she goes outside of white conventions. Her Viryan childhood friends are quick to discount her own sufferings (including being beaten) because she didn't have it as bad as them. White society dismisses her as a mongrel who has stepped above her station. While Poppy does indeed have growth to do (and does accomplish growth over the course of the story), there were many points where it felt like she simply could not win. And again, perhaps this is all too indicative of real life and the experiences of those who are caught between cultures, not white enough for one and not brown enough for another.
But given Poppy's struggles and her own naivete about the world, I struggled a bit to believe in Poppy's political journey towards the end of the book. There comes a point where she needs to find a way to gather political power from across the groups of the island; given how disregarded she was by many groups, I found it a bit hard to buy into her having a chance at success at successfully uniting any kind of resistance.
To Bargain with Mortals excels at grappling with political struggles of revolution, at how internal struggles in a movement can undercut their ability to succeed. But while I loved Poppy's overall journey of rediscovering her heritage, I wish I believed in her slightly more as a leader.
OVERVIEW/ANALYSIS: After years of exile, Poppy Sutherland is coming home. The adopted brown daughter of the white Viceroy of colonized Viryana, she was sent to a boarding school to learn how to behave like a proper Welkish woman. Now, faced with her father's ailing health, Poppy must use all that tutelage to successfully court the likely successor to her father's position in order to secure her own future Unfortunately, a Viryan crime lord known as the Jackal has decided that Poppy is the perfect bargaining chip in his efforts to free his imprisoned brother. When the kidnapped heiress and crime lord come face to face, however, they realize that Poppy might be the key to a free Viryana.
To Bargain with Mortals is an anti-colonization fantasy that digs into the political complexities that hamper revolution. I've read a number of fantasy books with anti-colonization themes in recent years, and I appreciated that To Bargain with Mortals grappled with an issue not often tackled in those books: the fact that the oppressed people are not a monolith. It is not as simple as colonists bad, the colonized good. Instead, To Bargain with Mortals explores the fact that colonized cultures can have their own flaws to contend with. In this instance, the people of the island had their own caste culture before the white people arrived. It treated those with magical gifts as more pure and holy than people without; it caused a stratification where non-magical people were considered lesser than, unacceptable marriage partners and not worthy of higher positions in life.
As a result, this divide makes the non-magical parts of Viryan culture less willing to jump into a revolution, as they feel they've just swapped one oppressor for another. Their life won't get better with the magic users back in control, so why should they make an effort? This division forces some of the characters to reckon with their own subconscious prejudices as they try to unite their people to take back their home.
And even after that, there's a divide in how the Virians believe they should go about trying to get back equality. Some want bloody revolution; others believe there's no way to oust the colonizers, and instead they need to make compromises to get representation in the government. These differing paths often put characters against each other when they should be working with each other, a fact that feels all too reflective of the real world.
While To Bargain with Mortals has multiple POV characters, the central one to the story is Poppy. A brown orphan adopted by the white governor of the island, she has been raised to believe that her island culture is something to be ashamed of. She had the old traditions literally beaten out of her, which makes her entirely unfamiliar with her own people and their way of being.
Her journey to reconnect with her culture is the central grounding point of the story, and overall a good one. In this world, while people are inherently born with magic, their ability to wield it effectively is tied to the offerings they make to the gods. Which means that Poppy's magical strength literally comes from learning more about her people, how to relate to them, and how to worship like them. Watching her grow in confidence in both her magic and her understanding of her culture was a highlight of the book.
But it also felt like Poppy was a stand-in to be everybody's emotional punching bag. Her white father blames her when she goes outside of white conventions. Her Viryan childhood friends are quick to discount her own sufferings (including being beaten) because she didn't have it as bad as them. White society dismisses her as a mongrel who has stepped above her station. While Poppy does indeed have growth to do (and does accomplish growth over the course of the story), there were many points where it felt like she simply could not win. And again, perhaps this is all too indicative of real life and the experiences of those who are caught between cultures, not white enough for one and not brown enough for another.
But given Poppy's struggles and her own naivete about the world, I struggled a bit to believe in Poppy's political journey towards the end of the book. There comes a point where she needs to find a way to gather political power from across the groups of the island; given how disregarded she was by many groups, I found it a bit hard to buy into her having a chance at success at successfully uniting any kind of resistance.
To Bargain with Mortals excels at grappling with political struggles of revolution, at how internal struggles in a movement can undercut their ability to succeed. But while I loved Poppy's overall journey of rediscovering her heritage, I wish I believed in her slightly more as a leader.
3:00 AM | 
Posted by
Caitlin G. |
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